Because of the transparency of watercolour we cannot cover dark paint with lighter paint. Therefore' the general principal in watercolour painting is to build the picture up working from light to dark.

This process of building up is known as laying 'washes. The number of washes we can successfully lay down depends upon how transparent a particular pigment is. (Some paints are more transparent than others) .

The beauty of watercolour lies in the way in which the white paper reflects light through the layers of colour giving a painting a feeling of light and luminosity. Too many layers, or a too heavy paint application, can block out this light and cause the painting to look muddy and lifeless. The more competent you are at handling the paint the less likely you are to "overwork" the picture.

Paint can be applied in different ways to achieve different effects.

There are two main forms of paint application and these must first be learnt separately from each other. These are:

1) Laying a Flat Wash

2) Wet-in-Wet

Once these have been learnt and understood you can then start to use them in combination with each other. In fact most watercolour paintings fall somewhere between the extremes of these two techniques.

In order to successfully combine these methods we now need to learn two more techniques:

1) Lifting Off (removing colour)

2) Bleeding Out (softening the edges)

Only when you have learnt these four techniques can you start to take control of over your painting.
 
 

Watercolour paint is composed of pigment bound together with "Gum Arabic". Gum Arabic is soluble in water and also contributes to the transparency of the paint. As you will discover, some pigments are more transparent than others.

Artists Quality - best quality
Students Quality - cheaper

Artist quality paints are the best you can buy. They tend to be stronger and clearer than the students paints. Student quality paints are "padded out" with other materials to make them go further.

The difference between the two is reflected in the price.

The paint may be bought in various forms:

Paint Box
Pans & Half Pans
Tubes

Brushes come in various shapes and sizes. The quality of the brush also varies and this variation depends on what it is made of.

Try to buy the best quality you can afford. A cheap brush will have no body, it will not hold much paint and it will be difficult to control.

Sable - best quality, very expensive

Sable/Synthetic Mix - good, not so expensive

Synthetic - good makes on the market, reasonably priced. Good makes are Pro-Art, Windsor and Newton, Sceptre.

Other brushes have special uses:

Squirrel - soft hairs, good for washes
Ox stiff, good for stippling

Hog (oil painting brush), stiff, good for stippling and dry brush.

Bristle - same use as hog but cheaper.

Special paper is made for watercolour painting. it can be bought in two ways:

Sheets

Pads

There are two things we look for when buying paper:

Weight the thickness and the strength
Texture the roughness or smoothness

Paper is most often available in the following weights:

901b - light weight buckles easily

1401b - medium weight buckles when quite wet

300 LB - heavy weight hardly ever buckles

The weight is reflected in the price.

The stronger and thicker the paper the less likely it is to buckle under wet paint.

The texture of paper tends to vary between different manufacturers but generally they are broken down as follows:

Rough pronounced tooth, good for dry brush work
Not - medium tooth, ideal for most work
Hot Pressed - VERY smooth, more difficult to
control the paint, good for flowers,
portraits, glass etc.
Paper may be stretched in order to stop it buckling.

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